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Report 244
Report #244 Skillset: Tracking Skill: General Org: Serenguard Status: Completed Aug 2009 Furies' Decision: Bloodthirst will reduce damage taken by dog. Problem: Tracking, compared to the other tertiary options available to knights, is a barren skillset. It lacks the defensive, utility, and active offensive options of any of them, being based around fire-once-on-entry traps (save for darts), but largely pit traps (which were themselves limited with the implementation of rockclimbing). In addition, the frailty of the hounds and wolves makes them largely unsuitable for real combat. They can be rather quickly dispatched, even without critical hits involved, and cannot be speedily replaced. The net result of this in combat is a knight that plays without a tertiary, and in its place, the often gimmicky pit mechanics. 0 R: 0 Solution #1: Allow hounds and wolves to be armoured in the same fashion as familiars from the Ecology skillset. This would be an easy change that would address several issues at once, without trying to give trackers anything new mechanically wise, instead, just making what is currently technically possible, practical to do. Allowing this would give trackers a bit of single target hindering (through clamp) that would work to make up for their total lack of defenses/DMP/active skills relative to other knights, while remaining different from those tertiaries. It would also allow for trackers to more realistically use their bond in combat, providing a more unique and interesting element to play, as well as allowing for more diverse strategies. Finally, in this scenario, the tracker would face more of a tradeoff- is it better to hide the wolf in the area so that they may "bond unite" to get away from a bad situation, or employ it to assist with their offense? 0 R: 0 Solution #2: As above, but do not allow an armoured wolf to seek or be moved to using "bond unite". This would amplify the tradeoff discussed above by making the tracker choose in advance to either have a useful escape, utility or search tool, or a bit of additional hindering. This could be facilitated by making the command to armour or unarmour having a long equilibrium or balance recovery. Player Comments: ---on 8/12 @ 23:32 writes: I dislike solution one, simply because it does allow slightly more potential for abuse. Currently killing the wolf is "required" when it's being used for seeking / uniting. Maybe make it so that it can't seek either (on top of solution 2), so you're choosing between "combat companion" and "tracking companion". Tie in the long balance time for switching and you've got a perfect balance with being able to go one way or the other, I think. Maaaybe let forgers make the armour suits that the tracker gets to affix, maybe not. If it's forger-made it shouldn't take too many comms. ---on 8/13 @ 05:10 writes: That would work as well. Altering solution 2 to incorporate Xenthos's suggestion regarding seek. ---on 8/29 @ 21:55 writes: I like solution 2 over solution 1 for the reasons Xenthos said. I also personally think that invincible pets shouldn't be able to listen, but the armoured ecology pets can do it, so cheers. However, I have a major problem with this report, and I don't know if I'm the only one but I find the idea of an armour plated dog to be extremely... unappealing. I suggest taking the currently 110.1% useless bloodthirst skill, and making it into what this report is suggesting. In other words, your bloodthirsting dog is so pumped that he isn't phased by blows, but he's too frenzied to do the careful tracking stuff. I know at least one tracker who would absolutely love to have a strong, stupid dog. ---on 8/30 @ 03:04 writes: You mean just the flavor of an armoured dog Ceren? So long as it operates the same as being armoured, that's great. And so long as clamp is retained, which is part of the attempt here- to give trackers a bit of hindering that isn't going to be dispatched in a few rounds to help make up a bit of their relative fraility compared to the other tertiary options for knights. Also, the flavor of actually continually using the dog/wolf, which gives a more unique aspect to the skillset. ---on 8/30 @ 04:56 writes: Correct. None of the old bloodthirst stuff would stay. It wouldn't get boosted damage nor would it lose clamp.